


comfortable silence is so overrated

by theskyfelldown



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Cigarettes, M/M, Masturbation, basically this fic is based off harry's song from the dining table
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10902981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskyfelldown/pseuds/theskyfelldown
Summary: Louis and Harry meant forever but it wasn’t enough.





	comfortable silence is so overrated

**Author's Note:**

> based off harry’s from the dining table from HARRY STYLES  
> i wrote this mostly in like two hours so im sorry if it seems too rushed.  
> before you start reading this, i would just like to remind yall that this is 100% FICTION.  
> wasn’t really happy at how this turned out but. i hope you guys like this anyway?  
> clearly unbeta-ed.  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/aiioutshirt/) [tumblr](thebloodychambrs.tumblr.com/)

_Woke up alone in this hotel room. Played with myself, where were you? Fell back to sleep, I got drunk by noon. I've never felt less cool._

Harry comes all over his stomach with a shout.

Harry exhales, his mind going hazy with pleasure, feels the exhaustion settled in his body spurt out with ever little drop of come. He’s never come this hard before. Not with Louis, not with anyone – ever. He doesn’t even bother reaching out for something to wipe his body clean – instead, sits back and settles on the shitty hotel bed with lumps in its mattress and stares at a crack webbed across the ceiling.

It’s been a year since Louis left him.

Or well rather, since he had left Louis. Because at the end, at every other version Harry had gone telling people or telling himself, the truth was – he’d left Louis. Or rather, they’d both left each other. They’d both gotten sick and tired of each other. Miserable – just fucking exhausted of each other. Their presence merely just another nuisance in each other’s lives. They’d both grown tired, living in the same apartment, circling each other, wary to even reach out for each other. They’d gone weeks without saying ‘I love you’, days without even speaking. Harry couldn’t’ even hold Louis’ gaze. He’d loved Louis and Louis had loved him but at the end – it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

Harry stares out of the hotel window, wonders how his life had come to this. How he’d woken up a year ago with Louis by his side, his soft hair against Harry’s cheek and now there’s a bottle of vodka pressing against his hip, warm and inviting, his come drying all over his stomach. It’s not even noon yet but Harry reaches over and takes a swig and tries to forget about warm blue eyes.

~*~

_We haven't spoke since you went away. Comfortable silence is so overrated. Why won't you ever be the first one to break? Even my phone misses your call, by the way._

 

Harry’s back at home, in his little cramped apartment, his cat Dusty purring in his lap. It was raining a bit, as it always did in London, rain pattering against Harry’s apartment windows. There was an old episode of Friends on TV and Harry’s heart clenched painfully  when he remembered watching it with Louis, tangled with each other on the couch after a long day at work, Harry pressing kisses to Louis’ forehead, his arm under Louis’ shirt, lazily going up and down the plane of Louis’ back.

Harry scratches at Dusty’s head absentmindedly and the corners of his mouth twitches when she purrs like a motorcycle. His gaze flickers from the TV to his phone on the little stool besides his couch.

He’s not exactly sure what he’s waiting for – a sign perhaps that Louis knew it had been a year since they’d left each other or maybe Louis knowing it was their anniversary. But nothing came. His phone remained dark.

He hated it. Because he hadn’t just lost Louis, his lover, his boyfriend that night. He’d lost his best friend too. He’d lost the most important person of his life.

He’d lost the only person who even fucking mattered.

Harry takes a deep breath and clenches his eyes shut when he feels tears prickling in the corner of his eyes. It wasn’t Louis’ fault – of course not. It wasn’t his fault either, Harry knew. They’d grew tired of each other, just like they’d grown tired out of everything else. There was no one to blame. It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t.

He misses Louis though, is the thing. More than anything in the world, he misses Louis existing in his life. He misses not being able to come home and gush about another fiasco gone wrong in the bakery, not having Louis talk about the twins growing older and how it just sucked that he was so far away but it didn’t matter because he loved the babies so much, he misses not being able to come to Louis and tell him how one day, they were going to get a huge house back in Doncaster, a family house perhaps, where everyone – Louis’ family, Harry’s family and all the boys – could come over home for Christmas even though Zayn really didn’t celebrate Christmas. He’d missed not being able to fight over which ice cream was the best in the little grocery down their road and having the owner to come over to help them and having Louis buy a completely different ice cream flavour at the end. He missed Louis, so fucking much. Every passing day without Louis’ existence in Harry’s life was just another fucking dagger pushed into Harry’s heart.

Harry chuckled bitterly and Dusty looked at him curiously. _Dagger._ They’d both have each other inked on their arms, forever. They were forever. What the fuck had happened?

          ~*~

 

_I saw your friend that you know from work. He said you feel just fine. I see you gave him my old t-shirt. More of what was once mine. I see your grin, it's all over his face._

 

Harry was at Sainsbury’s when he stumbled into Liam.

It had been ages since he talked to Liam – not since Louis and Harry had broken up with each other. In a way, Harry had understood why Liam had stood loyal to Louis and stayed with his best friend. He understood wholeheartedly why Zayn did it too. It didn’t stop him from getting hurt though – when Zayn stopped returning his calls, stopped replying to his messages. It hadn’t stopped him from getting hurt when Zayn messaged him to stop, either. He understood though.

Harry was in the fruit section, debating between bananas and kiwi. He loved them both but for some odd reason, he felt like buying bananas and kiwi at the same time was excessive. So, it had to be one. Bananas or kiwi. Harry stared at the bunch of yellow bananas, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. If Louis had been by his side, he’d slap Harry across the head and drop both the bananas and kiwi in Harry’s shopping cart and tell Harry to stop being so stupid.

But the thing was, Louis wasn’t by Harry’s side so Harry could do whatever the fuck he wanted to.

Harry rolled his eyes at himself and reaches for the bananas. It was just fruit. He was being fucking melodramatic, it was just fucking _fruit._

“Harry? Mate, is that you?”

Harry freezes, fingers clutched over the bananas. He knew that voice. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He breathed out slowly and turned around, only to see Liam Payne out of everyone Harry knew standing in front of him, wearing joggers and a t-shirt and it felt like someone had dropped a fucking bomb on Harry because it was fucking Harry’s.

He knew it was his because he’d given it to Louis, months ago when he was changing and Louis had come behind him and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist and dug in his face in Harry’s back.

“Can I borrow a shirt?” He’d ask, voice muffled and small.

Harry leaned back and tried not to smile when he felt Louis dragging his lips across Harry’s skin, “Don’t you have your own clothes?”

“No,” Louis had mumbled, “I just want to wear something of yours tonight, please?”

And Harry had given him one of his t-shirts and Louis had never given it back and they’d broken up two weeks later.

“Long time no see, man!” Liam gushes like it wasn’t his fault that they hadn’t seen each other in so long. Harry wanted to spit something hurtful or something that would get the message across but he took another deep breath and grinned instead.

“Liam! How are you, man?”

“Great, good,” Liam nodded and grinned at Harry, beaming, “You’ve cut your hair,”

Harry forgets that sometimes. That he’d cut his hair. He reaches at his hair and tugs at it and smiles, “Yeah. Needed a change,”

Liam’s smile dropped, “Yeah, how are you, man, really?”

“Good,” Harry lies, “I’m doing good. Surviving. How’s – how’s he?”

Liam stared at Harry’s shoes and looked at his bananas and then back at his face, “He’s good,”

Harry knew he was lying but it was just another dagger into Harry’s heart, twisted painfully. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad – that’s good. Great,” Harry nods, “Well, I – I have to go. Um, feed Dusty,”

“Right,” Liam said, looking awkward as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He was wearing Harry’s fucking shirt. Harry had to get out of there as soon as he could because he could feel the panic settling in, heavy, like lead. “See you around, man,”

Harry grabbed the fucking kiwi and bananas and tossed them into his basket. Bruised bananas be damned. He had a fucking broken heart to patch. “Yeah, see you,” Harry smiles and turns around and walks to the counter, feeling his heart break with each step.

~*~

 

_Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry too. But you, you never do. Woke up the girl who looked just like you. I almost said your name._

Harry wakes up with a girl in his bed.

Harry doesn’t even look at her, instead stumbles into his bathroom and throws up last night into the toilet bowl. Harry tries to close the bathroom door after him with a weak shove and hears the girl shift in his bed and feels guilt clawing up his throat. He doesn’t know why he’s guilty – why he feels so fucking wrong and instead of trying to make sense of it, Harry presses his forehead against the cold bathroom tile and sighs, trying to ignore the rancid stench of vomit.

A gentle knock comes on the door and it startles Harry, “Um – are you okay, in there?”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes out, realizing it must be the girl and he feels so fucking awful is the thing but he just wants her to go away. “I’ll just be outside – in like a few minutes, please.”

“Right,” The girl’s voice is hesitant and high, “Alright, I’ll just – okay.”

Harry hears her shift across his room and prays to God that she isn’t a fucking thief because that would be the icing on the cake wouldn’t it? Harry trying to drink his sorrow away by going to the cheapest bar he could find in London and bringing a girl home, only for her to find her a thief of some kind. He imagined her taking away his watch away that he’d so smartly kept on his bed side table and the girl going around, bragging to her friends about how she’d stolen a fucking watch from a heartbroken boy.

Harry flushes the toilet and musters himself the energy to get up. He brushes his teeth and gargles his mouth with mouthwash and spits in the sink before he realizes he was very much stark naked. Harry reaches over for a towel numbly and ties it around his hips before he walks out of the bathroom.

The girl’s fully dressed, scrolling through her phone, sitting on Harry’s bed. She looks up at Harry when he walks in and Harry tries not to startle when he realizes her eyes are electric _blue_ , incredibly bright in the morning sunlight, her brown hair choppy to her shoulders. Her face is rounded and her cheeks chubby and if it hadn’t been for that particular feature she would have been the exact female version of ... Louis.

He’d taken a girl home who looked like the spitting image of his fucking _ex_.

“Um,” The girl mumbles and gets up, “I was gonna go, but I had to see if you’re alright,”

“I’m fine,” Harry says, his voice almost hollow. The girl’s eyebrows shoot up and she adjusts her side purse, hanging off her shoulder.

“Right, well I’m off then,” She says awkwardly and gives Harry, a final look, almost waiting to see if Harry was going to say anything but Harry stood, frozen, like he’d seen a ghost and did nothing as the girl walked past him and closed the apartment door behind her.

His gaze flickered to his bed side table and saw his watch, the morning light catching in the edges, glinting almost mockingly. He closes his eyes and tries to remember how to just fucking breathe.

~*~

_We haven't spoke since you went away. Comfortable silence is so overrated. Why won't you ever say what you want to say? Even my phone misses your call, by the way._

 

Harry never smokes but he’s got a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in his hand anyway.

Harry stares at the cigarette carton and runs a finger over the label. He’s never lit a cigarette before, much less put one in his mouth and taken a drag. He’d always been fascinated at how easily Louis handled his cigarettes and always irritated at how Louis would immediately put down any idea of Harry ever trying to smoke.

He’s not quite sure why he even has a pack of cigarettes in his hand, why he’s standing on the roof of his building, leaning against the railing, watching as vehicles below him zoom past each other, leaving behind a trail of lights and smoke, but he’s there. Standing. Wishing, holding to a pack of cigarettes, the only thing connecting him to his ex-boyfriend like a fool.

Harry opens the pack and pulls a cigarette out and looks at the lighter, the edges catching the bright rays of the setting sun. He wonders what would happen if he lit the cigarette and dropped it below. Would it engulf the entire city in smoke? Or would it be crushed and stubbed out by the countless vehicles flying past each other? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know either.

Harry slides in the cigarette and puts the lighter back in his coat and looks forward and watches the sun set, the sky a brilliant gold and feels something bloom in the bottom of his stomach, feeling light.

It doesn’t feel like anything’s ending, doesn’t feel like everything’s going to get better either but it sure as hell feels like a new beginning. And Harry’s sure what to make of it.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/bitterlouistan/)   
>  [tumblr](http://theskysfelldown.tumblr.com/)


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